During a bitterly cold February, I was excited by the Booker International Prize longlist. In muddy March, it was the The Women’s Prize longlist. In July I’m usually excited about the Booker Prize longlist, but I seem to be in the midst of a longlist breakdown.
I blame this on the Women’s Prize longlist, which was dominated this year by pop fiction. There was a Read with Jenna selection (which was actually excellent) and a GMA Book Club selection (unreadable). With the exception of Elizabeth Strout’s Tell Me Everything, I was tepid about the shortlist. As for the winner, even I predicted it would win: it had been floating around on shortlists for months.
Before the internet, I’d never heard of a longlist. The newspapers printed the shortlist and the winner, and that was sufficient in the U.S. But all the English and Canadian bloggers wrote about the longlist. I tried one year to read the entire list, inspired by an excellent blogger, who, as I recall, got kicked off an official Booker Prize discussion board, which they then shut down. (Wow, what was going on there?) Anyway, I suddenly needed a Victorian lit infusion after reading four or five of the longlisted books.
Here’s what the Booker Prize has going for it already this year: Roddy Doyle and Sarah Jessica Parker. Miraculously, these two judges have name recognition. And that’s a smart move for the Booker.
Doyle, one of my favorite Irish writers and the Booker Prize winner in 1993, is, to judge from his novels, brilliant, witty, and charming. Ditto for Parker, the actor best known as Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City and And Just Like That. She is also a voracious reader of literary fiction, and a publisher with her own imprint.
The judges aren’t the only obsessed Booker readers. The BookTubers (bibliophiles on YouTube) start predicting the Booker Prize longlist as soon as the Women’s Prize ceremony is over. God help them, they read the whole list every year! Two of the best-known vloggers, Eric Karl Anderson of Lonesome Reader and Simon Savidge of SavidgeReads, can tell you everything about Booker 2025. (Both are prize enthusiasts, but Simon is slightly less tactful. ) Then there is a lower circle of vloggers who, God help them, say what’s on their mind. Some seemed actively depressed by the Women’s Prize list, which was, as I have indicated, “different” this year.
Are you excited about the Booker or not? Some Are … and Some Are Not…
I’m secretly looking forward to it, though I have vowed not to buy the books!
The longlist will be announced on Tuesday, July 29.
I,ve come to the point I pay no attention except to read someone who I respect listing them. It’s so commercialized.
Let’s hope it will be different this year!
Oh, I always look forward to seeing who makes it onto the long list. That’s not to say that I actually look forward to READING what makes it onto the long list! After several tepid (to me, at least) selection years, I was actually interested in last year’s competition and managed to read all the books by the time the winner was announced. Since I’m between books right now, I might read at least a couple from the list if they look interesting. On the other hand, I’m also in the mood for something classic, having just finished a couple of mid-20th century reads (Maugham’s The Razor’s Edge & Pamela Hansford Johnson’s Too Dear for My Possessing; both enjoyable but . . . not great!)
The Booker is the best prize! I always read some on the longlist, and I hope this will be one of the great ones.